Alone in the pain, dis-connected from loved ones in anguish
The limb the head the heart autonomous from my will
Each beating its own rhythmic lashes
On the most sensitive face of my soul
This inscription of the soul's hidden desire
And the body as instrument of torture.
What can this message be?
I remain alone even in deciphering the code
Some payment of a moral debt maybe
A ritual infraction, a long forgotten hurt maybe?
I rack my throbbing brain to think of something that will do
justice to this interminable
Suffering.
Is it possible for a moment for there to be no meaning to it all?
No ultimate design, no satisfaction by some accusing angel?
No district attorney waiting his smile to break
No judgement meted out by the gavel hitting the wooden
desk? At the end of the day?
Merely suffering for its own sake like the rows of bodies
wrapped tightly in grimy blankets
Along the sidewalk of Bombay streets as I speed to the
airport to escape these teeming masses
Each one surely in pain
Each one desiring a better life
Each one doing his or her own reckoning with the almighty
as to the meaning of their circumstance and its justice.
"Resist that at all cost, my mind interjects
For is it not more important to suffer for a reason
Can one at least bear it better?
With dignity even
But even this is too much for me as I situate myself once more
In a post-Holocaust age of technology and indifference
Suicide bombings of Pizza Huts in Jerusalem and Twin
Towers burning, bodies falling, etched in the soul forever.
No, for me meaning is a luxury I cannot afford and must
rest with the brute force of the facts, the reality as-it-is,
allowing it to work its devilish desire on my mind, yes I resist
For the sake of their memory
For the sake of my patients
For the sake of those who's suffering was pointless
'A mere act of nature' they said
'The force of Revolution' they said
'Social upheavals' they said
'The price we must pay for progress' they said.
Even 'what we must do to hasten the Messiah' they said.
For my mission is to remain in that space between the
Twin Towers, where meaning is as yet unclear,
I am the boatman who takes people across the river
I am the doorman who allows my patients in to this next corridor
With their baggage in hand
Making that path a little easier.
In this loneliness, of your pain
I reach out to you
I put my hand on your shoulder
I bless you to suffer well.
You are not alone
For in my soul I make space for you to enter
To feel my protection and care
To feel me feeling your anguish as real
I hold you close and wish you would feel more secure, so
that somehow you will take that leap into the abyss,
Knowing I'll be there for you,
Not letting go
That is my promise,
So you can fall well, into the abyss
Knowing I'll be there for you
Into the space of self-knowledge as prelude to a new awareness
Into the light of a new realization
That somehow in its typically uncanny way
Your soul knows
In some deep way
That this was meant to be
That this was not meaningless
That in some deep as yet impenetrable way
The travesty of this was appropriate
That there is a message to the pain
To the anguish
Yet to be unearthed
But present for you.
And that together we walk this path of pain
In this space I now hold you
Soothing your wounds along the way
Like a pregnant father sitting by the head of his wife in labor
Gently wiping her forehead with a wet cloth
And whispering loving words to ease her pain
To distract her spasms
Before the new life emerges.
In this space I know hold you
Soothing your wounds as best I can
But even more in the knowing
You and me
The wounded teaching the healer all along more than he
could ever learn alone
In that space between the Twin Towers
Between us
The divinity of presence
Between us
The sacred space of non-absurdity
Where we share the awareness of meaning and hold the
dignity of our suffering.
